How to get in the door?

That just sounds preposterous. Anyone can find out who was at fault. Facts is the driver was running way illegal. AFAIK he was put in prison.

The school I went to was a PTDI certified school. Night driving, loaded trailer, and we had 182 or so hours.

Go get some experience and reapply.

 

Crete will hire from most PTDI certified schools, but you can check with them to make sure about your choice of school. If they were on your short list, you should have checked with them before you started your schooling. I did a lot of homework before i even started schooling, deciding on where I wanted to apply and then chose a school that would work with my short list of employers.
Hope everything works out.